Richard Whittall:

The Globalist's Top Ten Books in 2016: The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer

Middle East Eye: "

The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer is one of the weightiest, most revelatory, original and important books written about sport"

“The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer has helped me immensely with great information and perspective.”

Bob Bradley, former US and Egyptian national coach: "James Dorsey’s The Turbulent World of Middle Eastern Soccer (has) become a reference point for those seeking the latest information as well as looking at the broader picture."

Alon Raab in The International Journal of the History of Sport: “Dorsey’s blog is a goldmine of information.”

Play the Game: "Your expertise is clearly superior when it comes to Middle Eastern soccer."

Andrew Das, The New York Times soccer blog Goal: "No one is better at this kind of work than James Dorsey"

David Zirin, Sports Illustrated: "Essential Reading"

Change FIFA: "A fantastic new blog'

Richard Whitall of A More Splendid Life:

"James combines his intimate knowledge of the region with a great passion for soccer"

Christopher Ahl, Play the Game: "An excellent Middle East Football blog"

James Corbett, Inside World Football

Saturday, June 25, 2016

An international volleyball tournament in the Iranian
capital has thrown into sharp relief a debate in international sporting
associations on how to deal with nations that restrict women’s rights as
athletes and/or spectators. How the Federation Internationale de Volleyball
(FIVB) evaluates next month’s World League in Tehran is likely to shape debate
on how international sports should handle countries guilty of violations of women’s
and human rights.

At stake in the debate is whether international sports
associations should refuse hosting rights to nations who restrict women’s
rights or use the awarding of tournaments as a means of fostering domestic
pressure for the lifting of restrictions. The debate focuses on Iran, which
unlike Saudi Arabia, the only other country that bans women from attending male
sporting events and men from watching women’s competitions, is eager to host
international tournaments.

FIVB, in contrast to world soccer body FIFA which refuses to
award hosting rights to Iran, has argued that a refusal would penalize players
and male rather than female fans in the Islamic republic.

FIVB has moreover suggested that forcing women’s entry into
Iranian stadiums was likely to provoke violence against women wanting to
exercise their right. The fact that awarding rights would provoke violence
would seem to favour a refusal to award hosting rights to Iran rather than accept
a reality that is imposed in part by threats of violence.

Iranian backtracking on earlier promises to lift the ban on
women for international volleyball tournaments like the World League in Tehran
and an earlier Asian Football Confederation (AFC) tournament in Iran further calls
into question whether engagement instead of boycott is the more effective
approach.

The glass is half full and half empty in the debate. The
dilemma is built into the charters of international sports associations like
FIVB that champion anti-discrimination but restrain them becoming embroiled in
political and religious issues. Both sides in the volleyball debate sum up
aspects of Iran’s reality and the volleyball federation’s experience in the
country to argue their positions.

Proponents of engagement note that Iran has proven in the
battle over its nuclear program that it is willing and able to sustain
sanctions and unlikely to bend easily when penalized. Iran, they argue, drove a
hard bargain when it finally agreed to serious negotiations.

For their part, opponents of engagement charge that Iran has
repeatedly backtracked on promised concessions. At stake, the opponents say, is
given the failure of the engagement approach the need for international sports
associations to uphold principles and their commitment to values of equality
and universal human rights.

Refusal to demonstrate that commitment, they say, would
reduce their adherence to those principles to lip service and turn it into a
farce. It would also hand a victory to those who threaten violence, a striking
move in a world that vows not to be intimidated by indiscriminate political
violence by the likes of groups like the Islamic State.

FIVB, which has been pushing for Iranian concessions not
only during the World League but also more permanently in Azadi Stadium, Iran’s
flagship sporting facility in Tehran, says it will evaluate the effectiveness
of its engagement in the wake of next month’s tournament.

The FIVB first backed away from its earlier threat to boycott
Iran when it last year went ahead with its Beach Volleyball tournament on Kish
Island, a Muslim-tinted Las Vegas style resort developed before the 1979
Islamic revolution, despite Iran’s backtracking on its consent to women’s
attendance of matches. Iranian officials justified their reversal by pointing
to threats by religious groups that blood would be spilt if women were allowed
to attend.

The FIVB secured a women’s section in the stadium despite
the threats and women believed to be relatives of Iranian volleyball federation
executives rather than from the public attended a couple of matches. Women fans
who travelled to Kish to watch matches were barred entry.

The situation in Tehran next month is likely to be no
different as supporters of President Hassan Rouhani, widely viewed as an
advocate of reduced social controls, and Iranian hardliners battle over Iran’s
future in the wake of the lifting of the nuclear-related international
sanctions. The fact that the battle over women’s unfettered right to attend
sporting rights is part of a larger struggle in Iran significantly reduces the
FIVB’s chances of influencing Iran.

Hard line threats of violence designed as much to intimidate
their opponents as to attempt to keep Iranian moderates in line are not
restricted to sports.

Major General Qasem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force, in an unprecedented response to
this week’s likely deportation by Bahrain of Shiite Sheikh Isa Qassim, warned
that the Gulf state had crossed a red line.

Bahrain stripped Sheikh Isa at the beginning of this week of
his Bahraini nationality. The move against Sheikh Isa was part of a renewed
crackdown on Bahrain’s majority Shiites by the Gulf island’s minority Sunni
rulers.

General Soleimani said the it would spark “the beginning of
a bloody uprising” that would lead to the “annihilation” of the country’s “bloodthirsty
regime.”.

The warning by General Soleimani, who commands IGRC forces
in Syria that support the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and who played a
key role in shaping Shiite militias confronting the Islamic State in Iraq, was
directed as much at Bahrain as it was at those in Mr. Rouhani’s government who
want to reduce tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Ironically, Bahrain’s move against Sheikh Isa serves the
purpose of Saudi Arabia which has been seeking to strengthen Iranian hardliners
as part of its struggle with Iran over regional dominance in the Middle East.
Like when it executed a prominent Saudi Shiite cleric in January, Saudi Arabia
hopes that strengthened Iranian hard liners will obstruct Mr. Rouhani’s
US-backed efforts to return Iran to the international fold.

The Iranian power struggle and its role in the covert war
between Iran and Saudi Arabia constitutes a high stakes battle that is far
beyond the paygrade of internationals sports associations like the FIVB. With
Mr. Rouhani and Iranian moderates having bigger fish to fry, it precludes the
FIVB from getting any real foot on the ground in its effort to secure women’s
rights. Under the circumstances, the FIVB and international sports associations
are best served by upholding principles and standing on the side lines until
the dust settles and new opportunities arise.

Thursday, June 23, 2016

Egypt may be inching towards a return to the stands of
soccer fans, who played a key role in the 2011 toppling of President Hosni
Mubarak and have been barred entry into stadiums for much of the last five
years.

Clubs, players and fans see a June 28 CAF Champions League
match between storied Cairo club Al Ahli SC and Ivory Coast’s ASEC Mimosas
Abidjan as a dry run for a gradual lifting of the ban that has repeatedly
sparked at times deadly clashes between militant, street battle-hardened fans
and security forces.

International matches have been largely exempted from the
ban to shield the government from potential accusations of responsibility for
the poor performance of an Egyptian squad because it lacked the support in the
stadium of its supporters.

Next week’s Al Ahli match is however likely to be a litmus
test because it will be attended by 15,000 fans, the highest number since the
ban was imposed on the eve of the 2011 popular revolt. The government has
moreover harked back to an initial understanding first reached in 2013 but
never implemented in which the interior ministry, clubs and militant fans
agreed that security forces would be replaced in stadiums by private security
firms.

"A private security company will be in charge of the
stands. This match will be another step forward towards the full return of
spectators to Egyptian stadiums," said Al Ahli executive Sherin Shams.

The ministry’s consent to the use of private security
companies, many of which are managed by former senior military officials,
constituted implicit recognition that the country’s brutal, unreformed security
forces are as much part of Egypt’s security problems as they are part of its
solution.

The consent also appears likely to be an effort by the
ministry and the security forces to shore up their tarnished images. In
internal memos leaked to journalists earlier this year, interior ministry
officials called for the boosting of the ministry's media image and monitoring
capabilities, including the hosting by popular television shows of former
police generals and stepped-up monitoring of news websites on a 24-hour basis.

Egypt’s security forces have long been one of the country’s most
despised institutions. Almost weekly clashes with security forces during soccer
seasons in the years before Mr. Mubarak’s downfall turned militant fans, who played
a key role in the revolt as well as most anti-government protests since, into
one of Egypt’s foremost social movements.

More than 70 Al Ahli fans were killed in 2012 in a stadium
in the Suez Canal city of Port Said in a politically loaded brawl that was
widely seen as an attempt by the security forces and the military to cut the
fans down to size that got out of hand. Last year, 20 supporters of Al Ahli
rival Al Zamalek SC died in clashes with security forces outside a Cairo
stadium.

Fans in April forced their way into a stadium in protest
against the ban on supporters attending football matches. At the Borg Al Arab
stadium in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, Ultras Ahlawy stormed the
pitch during an African Championship match against the backdrop of growing criticism
of general-turned-president Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi and protests against his
handing over to Saudi Arabia of two islands in the Red Sea during a visit to
Cairo in May by Saudi King Salman.

The protesters, although far smaller in number than those
that toppled Mubarak, adapted the slogans of the 2011 popular revolt: calls of
“Bread, freedom – the islands are Egyptian!” replaced the 2011 revolt’s “Bread,
freedom and justice.” An Egyptian court this month ruled against the return of
the islands.

Continued clashes with fans who repeatedly have over the
years targeted the interior ministry have persuaded Mr. Al-Sisi to move
government offices out of the centre of Cairo.

Mr. Al-Sisi recently inaugurated a new office of the
Interior Ministry at the Police Academy in New Cairo, east of the Egyptian
capital. The academy joined the prosecutor-general, state security, and
judicial bodies in an effort to deprive protesters of symbols at a time of
mounting discontent.

“The security situation is connected to the targeting of
these institutions by a number of protesters centred in downtown Cairo. They
seek to spread chaos throughout the country, especially after the
demonstrations became unfortunately chaotic themselves. And they’re attempting
to break the aura of authority around state institutions by putting them under
siege, covering their walls with graffiti of vulgar images and language
degrading to those who work there… The security challenges the country is going
through have forced the ministry to accelerate its construction plans,” General
Ahmad al-Badry, the former head of the Police Academy, told Al
Monitor during the inauguration.

General Badry’s acknowledgement of the street power of the
fans followed an unprecedented bid in February by Mr. Al-Sisi, who heads one of
the most repressive governments in recent Egyptian history, to reach out to his
opponents.

In his government’s initial recognition of the power of the
fans, Mr. Al-Sisi phoned in to a television programme on the fourth anniversary
of the Port Said incident to invite militant fans to appoint ten of their
members to independently investigate the incident.

It was the first time Mr. Al-Sisi reached out to his
opponents, many of whom have been killed by the interior ministry’s security
forces, forced underground or into exile, or are lingering in prisons where
they risk abuse and torture.

Ultras Ahlawy declined the invitation saying it could not be
accuser and judge at the same time but kept the door to a dialogue open.

Sunday, June 19, 2016

Political infighting within Kuwait’s ruling family is about
to take a dramatic turn with reports that the Gulf state plans to dissolve its
national sports organizations in a blatant illustration of the incestuous
relationship between sports and politics.

The expected Kuwaiti move, part of an effort to sideline Sheikh
Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah, a member of the Gulf state’s ruling family and one of
world sports’ most powerful men, and his brother, Sheikh Talal Al-Fahad, the
head of Kuwait’s National Olympic Committee (NOC), is the latest episode in a
longstanding power struggle that has played out in Kuwaiti courts and international
sports.

Sheikh Ahmad as a member of the International Olympic
Council (IOC) and the FIFA Council that governs world soccer as well as his
detractors in the ruling family who control the levers of power in Kuwait have
both involved and manipulated international sports associations in what is
effectively a political battle unrelated to sports.

The plan reported by the country’s authoritative Al Rai
newspaper constitutes the government’s response to a decision by the
Lausanne-based Court of Arbitration of Sports (CAS) to uphold FIFA’s banning
last year of the Kuwait Football Association (KFA) on the grounds that a new
Kuwaiti sports law amounted to political interference.

The IOC followed by FIFA and 15 other international sports
associations banned their Kuwaiti members on the grounds that the law
compromised the autonomy of sport. It was the second time in five years that
Kuwait was banned by the IOC and prevented from participating in Olympic Games. The current ban bars Kuwait from taking part in this summer’s tournament in Rio
de Janeiro.

The government hopes that it can get the bans lifted by
creating new sports associations while cancelling the controversial law. The
new organizations would effectively lock Sheikhs Ahmad and Talal as well as
their supporters out of Kuwaiti sports.

Al Rai quoted government sources as saying that the news
associations would keep “troublemakers and those who created corruption in
sport in Kuwait and put their personal interests ahead of the interest of
Kuwait and its youth out of sports.”

Earlier, Kuwait's Public Authority for Youth and Sports
headed by Sheikh Ahmad Mansour Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, another relative of Sheikhs
Ahmed and Talal, sued the brothers as well as other members of the NOC for $1.3
billion in damages.

The authority asserted that the damages resulted from Sheikh
Ahmad’s complaint to the IOC about government interference.

Youth minister Sheikh Salman Sabah Al-Salem Al-Homud
Al-Sabah further charged without mentioning him by name that Sheikh Ahmed was responsible
for the “total decline” in Kuwaiti sports. Sheikh Salman claimed that the
decline stemmed from “false complaints to international organizations in a bid
to suspend the country's sport activities."

Sheikh Salman blames Sheikh Ahmad for his failure in 2014 to
win an International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) presidential election.
Sheikh Salman was at the time accused of abusing his position in government to
garner votes.

The ISSF has since said that it was investigating Sheikh
Salman for ethics breaches. It said that the government’s legal action against
Sheikh Ahmad may constitute an “escalation” of political wrangling over control
of sport in Kuwait.

“The ISSF experienced already during Sheikh Salman’s
campaign to become ISSF President in 2014 that he showed little sensitivity for
a democratic process, the autonomy of sports and ethical behaviour within an
election process,” the group said in a statement.

Sheikh Ahmad, a former oil minister and head of Kuwait’s
national security council who is also president of the Olympic Council of Asia
and the Association of National Olympic Committees, was last year forced to
publicly apologize to Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, his uncle,
and other senior officials for levelling false allegations against them.

The allegations were widely believed to be part of an effort
by Sheikh Ahmad to leverage his status in international sports to engineer his
return to government in a prominent position.

Sheikh Ahmed had hoped to strengthen his position by
accusing his relative, former prime minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Ahmad
Al-Sabah, and former parliament speaker Jassem Mohammad Abdul-Mohsen Al-Karafi of
plotting to topple the government, launder money and misuse public funds.

Sheikh Ahmad had no choice but to withdraw the allegations
and publicly apologize on television after a Kuwaiti court dismissed as
fabrications his evidence in the form of digital documents and video recordings.
A Swiss Court had earlier ruled that the voices heard in the recordings were
those of the former prime minister and the speaker. Sheikh Ahmad’s forced
television appearance was intended to humiliate him and thwart his ambitions in
a country in which status and face are important.

“As I seek pardon from Your Highness, I stress that what
happened will be a lesson from which I will benefit and draw appropriate
conclusions. I am in full compliance with the orders and directives of Your
Highness and I promise to turn the page on this matter and not to raise it
again,” Sheikh Ahmed said in his apology.

Sheikh Ahmed has nonetheless insisted that he was the victim
of a “personal attack” that was indicative of strained relations between the
government and the sports movement.

Perhaps more to the point, Sheikh Ahmad and Kuwait’s
travails are the inevitable consequence of the politicization and political
manipulation of sports in Kuwait as well as elsewhere in the Middle East and
North Africa in which international sports associations are as a complicit as
are the region’s autocratic rulers.

Friday, June 17, 2016

The opening of a court case against Turkish soccer star
Hakan Sukur on charges of insulting the president takes Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s autocratic
ambitions back to their origins: an Islamist power struggle with exiled
preacher Fethullalh Gulen that erupted five years ago on the pitch.

A soccer player-turned-politician who in 2011 was elected to
parliament as a representative of Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP),
Mr. Sukur stands accused of asserting in February 2015 that the president was
guilty of theft.

Mr. Sukur, who sided with Mr. Gulen in his dispute with Mr.
Erdogan, was referring to charges in 2013 of corruption against Cabinet ministers,
the director of a state bank and members of the president’s family by pro-Gulen
prosecutors that were at least partly related to Iran sanctions busting. The
charges rocked Turkey at the time.

Mr. Sukur may well be sentenced as many others have in a
Turkey that is being subjected to Mr. Erdogan’s will through the curtailing of
individual freedoms and the politics of fear – a private university fired a
communications professor this week for mocking the president in class – but can
seek comfort in the fact that legal proceedings in the United States could
reopen the corruption charges.

Mr. Erdogan responded to the corruption charges by accusing
Mr. Gulen, who heads one of the world’s largest and wealthiest Islamist
movements, of attempting to stage a coup and build a parallel state in Turkey.
The president effectively squashed the investigation of the corruption charges
by dismissing or transferring thousands of members of the judiciary and police,
both institutions that were viewed as bulwarks of support for the preacher.
Some alleged pro-Gulen members of the judiciary and police were accused of
conspiracy and terrorism.

The corruption charges constituted a sequence in the power
struggle that first erupted in 2011 with a massive match fixing scandal, the
worst in Turkish soccer history, in which the two Islamist leaders battled for
control of storied Istanbul club, Fenerbahce SK, the political crown jewel in
Turkish soccer.

At the centre of the scandal was Fenerbahce president Aziz
Yildirim, one of 93 soccer officials and players accused of match fixing.
Political control of Fenerbahce potentially paves the way for support of
millions of the club’s fans. Mr. Erdogan, who at the time was still prime
minister. ensured legislation that shielded the club from relegation and
reduced penalties for match fixing. Mr. Yildirim was initially sentenced to six
years in prison but acquitted last year in a retrial.

Turkish authorities detained 38 people, including former
police chiefs, lawyers and journalists, in April in a series of police raids on
suspicion of framing Mr. Yildirim as well as other Fenerbahce players and directors
as part of a continued crackdown on alleged followers of Mr. Gulen.

Police issued at the time warrants for the arrest of 64
people suspected of involvement in the alleged plot against Fenerbahce.
State-run Anadolu News Agency reported that the suspects could be charged with forming
and belonging to a terror organization and conducting illegal wiretaps.

While Mr. Erdogan may have believed that he had put the
corruption scandal to bed, he risks the case being reopened with the arrest in
Miami earlier this year of Turkish businessman and gold trader Reza Zarrab on
charges of having helped Iran circumvent US and international sanctions against
Iran.

The US investigation has laid bare details of Mr. Zarrab’s
links to senior Turkish officials, including some of those that originally had
figured in the 2013 corruption scandal. US prosecutors allege that Mr. Zarrab
paid tens of millions of dollars in bribes to the three ministers and the
director of Halkbank, the state bank, that had been named in the scandal. The
prosecutors further assert that Mr. Zarrab made a $5.5 million donation to a
charity established by Mr. Erdogan’s wife.

Turkish prosecutors dropped similar charges against Mr. Zarrab
as part of the squashing of Turkish proceedings. Mr. Zarrab was subsequently
honoured with an award for being one of Turkey’s top exporters. US prosecutors
said their evidence supported the original Turkish charges against Mr. Zarrab.

The threat to Mr. Erdogan is that Mr. Zarrab may want to
cooperate with US prosecutors in an effort to reduce the chance of him spending
up to 75 years in prison if he were to be convicted in a US court. That in turn
could lead to legal proceeding against associates of Mr. Erdogan in US courts
as well as sanctions against Turkish banks complicit in Iranian sanction
busting. Halkbank shares on the Istanbul stock exchange have already taken a
hit in anticipation of a possible plea bargain by Mr. Zarrab.

Mr. Sukur, following in the footsteps of Mr. Gulen, has
moved to the United States. Concerned that he may not get a fair hearing by a
judiciary that has been politicized and legislation that is designed to grant
Mr. Erdogan immunity from criticism, Mr. Sukur has said he would be willing to
testify via videoconference. Mr. Sukur, Turkey’s most prolific striker and the
player who scored the world’s fastest goal, could be sentenced to up to four
years in prison.

Mr. Erdogan initially dismissed Mr. Zarrab’s arrest as being
irrelevant to Turkish interests. That could prove to be a premature assessment.
The potential fallout of Mr. Zarrab’s case would cast the defamation charges
against Mr. Sukur in a very different light. Combined the two cases could
create a situation in which Mr. Erdogan’s squashing of attempts at transparency
and accountability backfire and come to haunt his grip on power.

Thursday, June 16, 2016

Iran seems committed to push forward with plans to pump additional barrels of oil into an already oversupplied market.

The country’s crude output has crossed over 3.8 million barrels a day during the current month, which marks about 40 percent increase since the western sanctions were lifted.

Iran’s Petroleum Minister Bijan Zangeneh announced about this during the public meeting of the Iranian Parliament on June 13, Shana news agency reported. Zangeneh noted that Iran has doubled oil exports, which reached 2 million barrels per day now.

The Minister stressed the need for foreign investment to develop the country’s oil and gas industry as well.

Iran plans to push its oil exports up to 2.2 million barrels a day by the end of this summer. In late May, the oil production in Iran amounted to 3.562 million barrels per day, which was 90,000 barrels more compared to the volume extracted in April, according to OPEC’s June report released this week.

Obviously, greater supply will pressure global oil pricing. However, the issue for Iran is market share. The country is determined to regain the market share lost as a result of the sanctions, James M. Dorsey, Senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies told AzerNews via email while commenting on Iran’s increasing oil exports to the global market.

Geopolitical tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia led to failure of OPEC’s Doha and Vienna meetings previously. The organization could not realize its oil freezing plan or put production ceiling to control volumes of oil that the member states pump. Saudis refused to take any measure without the commitment by the Iranian side.

Dorsey believes the more Iran reintegrates in the international community, as well as, the economy and financial systems, the easier investment will become.

Although most of the western sanctions against Iran were removed, some of the U.S sanctions still remain in place. It bans conducting business transactions in U.S. dollar with Iran, which obstructs flow of the investment to the country.

Dorsey believes that nothing much is likely to happen on this front until after the U.S. elections, and then it will depend on who has won the election.

Currently, Iran’s oil industry attracts attention of the foreign investors more than its gas sector do. Nevertheless, the Islamic Republic is very keen to boost its gas exports too.

Dorsey said that increase in the gas export volumes of Iran is only a matter of time.

The Iranian gas industry is encountering the same problems in attracting foreign investment that most sectors of the economy face. Foreign investors are circling Iran but hesitant to bite as long as they feel that there is a risk of violating American sanctions, added the expert

Iran is currently building a pipeline to Oman, where it will use the LNG plants to exports its natural gas supplies.

Touching upon Iran’s preference to construct Iran-Oman pipeline over other options, Dorsey underlined that Iran has very close relations with Oman that has been very helpful to Iran as a mediator with the United States and in terms of maintaining economic and political relations.

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

The Muslim world’s battle over the legitimacy of political
Islam has expanded to the soccer pitch as proponents and opponents of interpreting
the faith politically seek to impose their public morals with men’s hairstyles
and facial hair taking centre stage.

At the core of the battle are fans and players, a reflection
of society as a whole, who seek to exercise their right to choose their
preferred styles often in opposition to efforts by autocrats to impose their
will depending on their attitude towards public morals and political Islam. The
crackdown on hairstyles is part of a larger battle to control public morals by
autocrats who either seek to ban religious expression from public life or
impose pious behaviour.

Soccer fans sporting beards in the Central Asian nation of
Uzbekistan, a country that see beards as potential expressions of empathy with
political or militant Islam, were recently barred entry into a stadium. The
move was widely seen as signalling another crackdown on anything the government
associates with political strands of Islam.

Uzbekistan’s long-standing president, Islam Karimov, a
Soviet era Communist Party official, who has ruled Uzbekistan with an iron fist
since its independence in 1991, views political Islam as a serious threat to
his regime.

Plainclothes policemen forced bearded fans standing in line
to enter a stadium for a friendly match in late May between FK Bukhara and FK
Navbahor Namangang to leave the cue and return once they had shaved off their
beards.

"There were thousands of people lining up to enter the
stadium when a man in civilian clothes approached me and said 'Go and remove
your beard and then you can enter,'" one fan told Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty’s (RFE/RL) Uzbek language service.

The fan said he dropped his rejection of the demand when the
policeman was joined by four other men. "I had no choice but to run to a
nearby barber shop," he said.

RFE/RL reported bearded university students were also being
barred from entering classrooms and that bearded men had been detained on
streets and in bazaars and taken to police stations for questioning. Women
wearing the hijab were being stopped for questioning in the capital Tashkent as
well as the Fergana Valley in the east of the country, a hotbed of ethnic
tensions and Islamist activism.

A FK Bukhara fan leader told RFE/RL that fans under 40 years
of age were informally barred from wearing beards. "Young men with beards
aren't allowed to stadiums," the fan club leader said. Rather than
denouncing the ban, some fans complained that the ban had not been
communicated. "They could have put a sign at the ticket office (saying)
that bearded men aren't allowed into stadiums," one fan said.

If Uzbekistan seeks to control men’s facial hair in the
government’s effort to crackdown on political Islam, Saudi Arabia, which sees
its autocratic monarchical rule as the only legitimate form of Islamic
government, has sought to stop young men from adopting hairdos involving shaved
parts of one’s hair in a style popular among youths across the globe.

Al Shabab FC goalkeeper Waleed Abdullah became two years ago
the first Saudi soccer player to be publicly humiliated when a referee delayed
kick-off of a Saudi premier league match to cut the Al his hair because his
hairdo was deemed un-Islamic and by implication subversive – a threat that
needed to be dealt with immediately and demonstratively.

The Saudi Arabian Football Association said at the time that
Mr. Abdullah’s hair-do violated a saying of the Prophet Mohammed that bans
Al-Qaza, the shaving of one part of one’s hair while leaving others unshaven.

The public humiliation of Mr. Abdullah not only evoked the
disgracing of players who failed to live up to autocratic expectations in
Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Moammar Qaddafi’s Libya but also resembled
enforcement of strict dress codes by the Islamic State, the jihadist group from
which Saudi Arabia seeks to differentiate itself.

Al Shabab was only allowed to play its match after fans,
players and officials watched the referee use scissors to remove a small Mohawk
at the front of Mr. Abdullah’s head.

The incident, which occurred prior to the ascendancy to the
throne last year of King Salman and the extraordinary empowerment of his son,
deputy crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman, raises questions of how Saudi rulers
will balance adherence to precepts of public morals advocated by the country’s
powerful, ultra-conservative Wahhabi scholars with their effort to restructure
the kingdom’s economy and cater to aspirations of its youth.

Mr. Abdullah’s shaving sparked ridicule and anger among
Saudi fans who noted that the kingdom had bigger fish to fry, including changes
to its social contract as a result of financial austerity, budget deficits
because of tumbling oil prices, a stalled war in Yemen, proxy wars with Iran in
Syria and elsewhere, and uncertainty about its relationship with the United
States, the Gulf’s main protector,

Prince Mohammed’s restructuring of the economy and
sensitivity to youth aspiration involves a rewriting of the kingdom’s social
contract that with the slashing of subsidies, raising of prices of utilities
such as water and electricity, introduction of indirect taxes, and planned
streamlining of a bloated bureaucracy. That in turn involves a rewriting of the
social contract that promised cradle-to-grave welfare in exchange for surrender
of political and social rights.

It wasn’t immediately clear how Prince Mohammed would square
his efforts to cater to youth desires by developing a culture and entertainment
industry in a country that has banned cinemas until now with a continued ban on
men freely choosing how they wish to groom themselves. The new industry is part
of Prince Mohammed’s Vision 2030 economic and social plans for the kingdom that
were announced in April.

It also remained unclear to what degree the Salmans are
willing to take on the Wahhabi scholars with whom they share power in an
arrangement that goes back to the founding of the latest Saudi state in the
early 20th century. The government recently curbed the power of the
religious police but has so far been unwilling to challenge the Wahhabis on the
lifting of a ban on women’s driving.

A South Asian leader of a political Islamic group cautioned
that Saudi moves were wholly designed to ensure the survival of the ruling
family. “In Islam, any head of state should have the trust of the common
people. They don’t enjoy the confidence of the common people. They appoint
their next emperor. This is not in accordance with Islam,” the Islamist leader said,
pinpointing the risks involved in the inevitable restructuring of relations
with the Wahhabis as the Al Sauds seek to take their autocracy into the 21st
century.

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About Me

James M DorseyWelcome to The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic, religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region. This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment on the region’s developments. Contact: incoherentblog@gmail.comView my complete profile